Abstract

Background:Epidermal growth factor (EGF) stimulates a variety of biological processes. The present study tries to determine whether the serum level of EGF correlates with disease activity and local therapy with dithranol in psoriasis patients.
Material/Methods: We examined EGF serum concentration levels in 21 male patients with psoriasis (PT Total Psoriasis), before and following local treatment (PT: PT1, PT2), as well as the correlation between serum EGF and PASI scores. The control group (C) consisted of 20 healthy male volunteers. Radioimmunoassay of EGF was performed using a reagent pack (Amersham, UK). Results: The EGF serum concentration levels in patients before treatment (PT1) were slightly higher than in the control group (C). Treatment resulted in a slight decrease of EGF concentration levels in psoriatic patients coming close to control group levels. Despite the general improvement in the clinical condition of all patients, an increased EGF concentration occurred in twelve patients. There was no correlation observed between serum EGF and PASI in both groups.
Conclusions: These was no explanation found for this phenomenon.

Keywords: serum EGF, Psoriasis, dithranol treatment